The Black Cat Yawns
by fringeperson
Summary: Seras Victoria was a police woman; she wore trousers that had pockets in, was licensed to carry a gun, and had been the only member of her unit to survive being sent into Cheddar, but once she managed to get her head on straight again after being turned into a vampire, Seras proved herself to be very capable - inspired by a Playschool song, don't own, AlucardxSeras
1. Chapter 1

Alucard stopped in front of Seras where she was sitting on the floor (collapsed after the adrenaline had left her system) near the last smear of his blood, left behind from when he had formed a message with it for her, ordering her to drink his blood.

"Oi. Why didn't you drink my blood?" he asked her coldly.

A pair of big blue eyes looked up at him then, but not with the nervous fear he had more than half-expected after her failure to obey. There was, in actual fact and to Alucard's surprise, a level of incredulity shining back at him there.

"Well?"

"Anderson was waiting for me to stick my neck out so that he could chop my head off," Seras answered plainly as she raised her first finger, as though she were counting off reasons. "You can clearly recover from that Master, glad to have you back, but I don't think I want to test my ability to imitate the feat," she pointed out reasonably. "I suspect I'd fail."

Alucard smirked darkly. He didn't confirm or deny the supposition, simply smirked in silence and inclined his head slightly in acceptance of her reasoning.

"Was that all?" he asked.

Serash shook her head and a second finger uncurled to join the first. She _was_ counting off reasons for not having taken his blood.

"I've only been a vampire for a week," Seras continued. "I don't think I'm quite ready for whatever your blood contains, Master," she admitted.

Alucard's smirk became smug. He knew exactly how potent his blood was. Again, he inclined his head in acceptance of her answer. It was possible that she wouldn't be able to handle his blood, even if she was of his line. He _had_, sad to say, lost previous Childeren that way. Had been forced to kill his Childeren when they went mad from the taste of his blood.

A third finger was uncurled. "I was also terrified," she admitted frankly. "Those bayonets hurt going in, and they hurt just as much when I was pulling them out again. Your head wasn't attached to your shoulders any more – and had just melted off another bayonet," she reminded, eyes large in her face. "I'd dropped my gun, was trapped, then Sir Integra arrived and..."

"And?" Alucard prompted.

Seras lowered her hand, and averted her eyes before she bowed her head where she sat. "And..." she hesitated. "And... as well as that... I can't explain it Master... but I feel like I'd be losing something important if I drank your blood. I don't know _what_," she said, a hint of frustration in her voice. "Just that it's important."

Alucard's entire expression melted into a frown.

"Probably just as well," he allowed at last, though he grumbled as he looked down at her. "After all, who would think to see _you_ walking the night?" he asked rhetorically as he turned and walked back to where Integra was waiting for them.

"Why did you bring her into your family?" Integra asked softly as he reached her.

"Why indeed," he answered, just as softly. "Possession? Whim? Foolishness or a flight of fancy?" he supposed, then scoffed at them all. "I indulged in my own nearly forgotten, fickle human nature. I felt like having someone around for a while," he explained with a slight smirk.

Alucard glanced at his Master. She was not impressed, and deeply curious as well, though she wouldn't say anything. He could tell from the way one eyebrow was arched up above the frame of her glasses. He turned his head slightly to look beyond Integra and over his shoulder to Seras. She was still on the floor with her gun across her lap.

"Don't sit around," he called. "Let's go, Police Girl."

"Woman," Seras answered as she pulled herself up. "Girls don't make it through the Academy. I was a police _woman_."

"Police Girl is good enough for you," Alucard answered with a smirk as he faced forward again and continued out to the door.

Seras sighed. "And all my squad called me 'kitten'," she lamented. "I suppose I'm doomed to never be respected for what I _can_ do?" she asked as she passed Sir Integra, chasing after her master.

"Probably, Police Girl," Integra answered with a chuckle of her own as she also started to, more sedately, follow after the pair. "Getting sentimental, No-Life-King?" she mused to herself. "You who _once_ were The Count, the Prince of Wallachia?"

~oOo~

Seras blinked when she returned to her designated bedroom. It looked a lot bigger than it had when she'd left it last. That probably had to do with the lack of her _bed_ anywhere. Instead, Walter stood by what was clearly a coffin, which was laid where her bed had previously been.

"Walter," Seras said, as calmly as she could. "Why did you have my bed removed?"

"You are to sleep in a coffin from now on," Walter answered. "Sir Integra said 'vampires should sleep in coffins', and Alucard said that, as you had yet to drink blood, you would need to sleep in a coffin with soil of the place of your birth, or be weakened."

Seras grit her teeth. She understood that. She did. She'd actually been required to read Stoker's _Dracula_ in high school, and though she hadn't much cared for the book, she had finished it and knew a good deal of (at least fictional) vampire lore from it. How much of it was true, she was slowly beginning to learn.

"But why," she asked, "did that necessitate the removal of my _bed_?"

"Um..." Walter answered, confused himself. "Well, you _do_ need to sleep in a coffin, for your own sake, Miss Seras."

"And I will, I promise, but could I please have my bed back as well?" Seras requested as politely as she could. "Only, I don't think the coffin will be very comfortable for lounging around on while I read a book in my limited downtime, and that couch," she said with a gesture to the named piece of furniture that was in her room, "isn't comfortable. I'd also like the photograph I'd placed under my pillow returned, if it was removed along with the bed."

Walter blinked in surprise at the requests. "Of... course, Miss Seras," he agreed. "I'll have it back in for you tomorrow. As for the photograph... I did strip the sheets before removing the bed. The photograph is in the top drawer of your vanity."

"Thank you, Walter," Seras answered, and immediately moved to the drawer indicated.

"Sentimental fool," Alucard said as he appeared in the doorway. "What photograph would you keep under your pillow? You have chosen the night. You can never go back to the life you had before. Hoping for the sunlight is pointless."

"It's a photograph of my parents, Master," Seras answered softly as she lifted it out of the drawer, gloved fingers caressing the edges tenderly. It was an action they had performed hundreds of times before. "The last picture taken of the three of us as a family before they were killed."

"There's blood on that picture," Alucard noted. "Old and dried, but I can smell it still."

"It has the blood of my father, from when they shot him. My mother, from when they shot her for being a witness to their crimes..." Seras frowned. "_Their_ blood," she added with a darkly satisfied hiss. "From when I charged out of the wardrobe where my mother hid me, armed with nothing but a fork I'd grabbed off the floor, and gouged one eye out of one of them for killing my parents. My blood is on there too, from when they shot _me_ before I could cause them further injury. They didn't expect me to survive, but I did. Just to see them rot in prison, I made myself survive, even though it meant watching as one of them raped my mother's corpse," she finished fiercely.

Walter and Alucard both stared at her in genuine shock. Shocking either man was not an easy thing, but to shock both at once? It was practically unheard of. Yet, she had done it.

Walter had, of course, done a background check on Seras. Next of kin would have needed to be notified of her new situation, but she hadn't had any. He'd known that she was an orphan, but he hadn't known the details of the matter. Hadn't looked beyond that discovery, in all honesty.

Seras looked up at her Master, her blue eyes locked on his orange glasses. "I was four, Master," she said, as though answering a spoken question of how old she had been at the time.

A question that had not been asked either verbally or telepathically.

Walter coughed slightly and bowed to the two vampires. "Master Alucard, I was on my way to deliver this to you," he said, changing the topic as he moved to where he had set a suitcase on top of Seras' desk.

Seras moved to slip the photograph under the pillow in her new coffin, while Alucard opened the suitcase.

"What's this?" Alucard asked with a sort of wicked pleasure, and behind her, Seras heard the cocking of a gun.

"The anti-monster 13mm combat hand-gun, 'Jackal'," Walter answered pleasantly. "While the .454 Casull used _modified_ rounds, this gun uses its own new _custom_ rounds. Thirty-nine centimetres long, sixteen kilos, maximum of six rounds to a clip... It is something no _human_ could wield."

"You give it to a human, if they want it enough then they'll find a way," Seras said as she closed the lid of her coffin and stood once more.

Alucard smirked at her, though just briefly. "Custom rounds?" he asked Walter.

"13mm steel explosive rounds," Walter answered.

"The casting?" Alucard pressed as he lifted the clip from the suitcase as well.

"Pure Macedonium silver," Walter supplied.

"And the tips?" Alucard purred as he twisted the gun in his hand just so. "Explosive, or mercury?"

"Pre-blessed mercury-type tips," Walter answered.

Alucard slammed the clip into place with a grin and raised the gun again. "It's perfect Walter," he praised with dark satisfaction.

"My thanks," Walter demurred with a slight bow.

"This should be enough to kill even Father Anderson," Alucard noted as he raised the gun in front of his face once more, getting a better look at it, his finger straight out past the trigger so that he wouldn't chance wasting a round into the stonework with an itchy twitch.

"It is very nice," Seras agreed as she ran her own eyes over the weapon. She'd seen a lot of guns at both the Police Academy and passing through the Station's forensics or gun registration offices.

"Miss Seras, your weapon has also been modified as well," Walter announced blandly.

She turned, hopeful. Her master's weapon was a thing of beauty, and she'd been carrying a fairly standard (though large) rifle before.

What she was confronted with, however...

"30mm anti-monster cannon, Harkonen," Walter said as he stood by the weapon. The butt of it was on the ground by his feet, and the other end was a good couple of feet above his head. "There are two types of ammo – depleted uranium shells, and explosive steel incendiary rounds. It's powerful enough to destroy all land and air targets excluding the largest of tanks."

Seras stared, stunned and jaw hanging open. "And it's a thing of beauty," she finally said. "I'd very much like two, even. But... isn't it a bit much for every day?" she asked.

The sound of rapid gunfire cut off any answer Walter might have given, and an explosion from overhead shook some of the dust out from between the stones that made up the ceiling of Seras' room.

Seras sighed. "Never mind, forget I asked," she said as she shook her head. "I think I need a new definition of 'every day'."

~oOo~

"If I still needed to breathe, I'd complain about the state of the vents," Seras said when she landed on the Round Table before quickly stepping aside so that Walter could also exit them, brushing dust off herself as she did.

For whatever reason, the Hellsing Butler had dived head-first and landed on his hands, doing a neat little flip off the table and onto the floor, rather than slipping out feet-first as Seras had done. Then again, Seras was also quick to get off the table as well when she realised that _everybody_ (save Sir Integra) who was around the table was an ageing man, and she was herself in a very short skirt.

Seras made a mental note to ask about who the _hell_ had designed her uniform, because really, she looked more like a showgirl who had been dressed up as a soldier to entertain the _real_ troops, rather than someone who actually did any fighting herself.

And she missed having pockets. Her old uniform, the one she'd worn as a policewoman, had really good, deep and well-reinforced pockets.

Okay, so her master had given her a brief lesson on how to store large things in pockets that practically didn't exist just before she'd been directed to go first into the vents (like hell she'd be able to manoeuvre the Harkonen through the ventilation shafts, she'd barely managed manoeuvring her boobs), but there was just something _about_ pockets. They were a place to put your hands, if nothing else.

"Seras! Walter!" Integra greeted with eagerness and a hint of relief.

Seras clicked her heels together and saluted. "Reporting for duty and awaiting your orders, Sir Integra," she answered sharply.

"Report, Walter," Integra requested.

"My apologies for being late," Walter said as he approached his mistress. "Our main unit has been annihilated," he continued as he lit her cigar for her. "To have ghouls work as an organised, armed group... I have no idea who thought of it, but he's clever."

"Walter," Integra said in a tone that sternly requested she be spared professional annotations. "I'll be frank; is this the end for us?"

"No," Walter answered with a smile. "Compared to what the first Sir Hellsing faced a century ago, this is hardly something I'd call a crisis."

"No one here is going to die unless they do something _very_ stupid," Seras said plainly. "Master is in the basement, we're here, and the enemy is in between."

"From the third floor, we will deploy," Walter agreed with a nod and raised one hand up to by his face. "As my Lady commands, we will not let a single one of them leave this mansion alive. Let us teach that boy the exact cost of our tuition."

"Sir Integra, do you want a vampire for questioning, or will we just kill them all?" Seras asked.

Integra blinked, just once, behind her spectacles at the young woman. "Destroy them all," she answered. "If you are able to gather any intelligence from this vampire, that would be useful as well, but do not spare him, and do not give him a chance to escape."

Seras nodded militarily.

~oOo~

"Lil' Miss Hellsing," a voice called smugly down the hall. "I'm comin' for ya. I'm gonna rape her and kill her, and then fuck her corpse again. I'll kill every last one, and burn everything down. Then I'll go home, take a piss, and go to sleep, okay?"

Seras narrowed her eyes at the vampire as he led his shambling soldiers. For what he'd just said, she wanted to hit him, hard, but Walter had the lead on this, so she'd be taking her cue from him, and could only watch as he somehow manipulated wires, so very, _very_ cleverly to slice and dice a few of the ghouls.

"I missed?" Walter asked as he stalked towards the enemy. "I guess I'm not as sharp as I used to be," he decided. "Walter C. Dolnez," he said, introducing himself. "Hellsing family butler, former Hellsing garbage man."

"Shoot him!" the vampire ordered the ghouls, even as Walter raised his hands – and his wires – and raced between the bullets.

"So slow," Walter noted as he weaved through the first couple of rows of ghouls, then ducked down below where they were firing. "Then again, ghouls are only ghouls. It was very clever of you to take advantage of their toughness, but it is far from being an invincible army," he critiqued. Then he pulled on his wires, and those he'd caught were turned into nothing more than chum.

He stood.

"Pissed yourself yet?" he asked as he walked calmly forward, his wires occasionally catching the light as they moved with him. "Prayed to your God yet? Gotten ready to cower in a corner and beg for mercy, okay?" he asked, grinning darkly as his wires caught the light.

The vampire, Seras noted with a disgusted frown, had the nerve to laugh.

"Now that's more like it! I was getting bored 'cause this was too easy!" the vampire said happily, a manic look in his eyes.

He snapped his fingers, and the ghouls closed rank around him, shields to the fore, and guns poking out through the gaps that had been designed into the shields.

"March!" the vampire ordered.

"Miss Seras," Walter said calmly. "Commence direct support."

Seras took a deep breath, hoped that she wouldn't be put on repair-the-mansion-duty, and fired her Harkonen. With one shot, a simple squeeze of the trigger, she took out easily as many ghouls as Walter had with his wires not long before.

"Second shot, incendiary high-explosive round, VT fuse," Walter ordered. "At the enemy's centre."

"Aye," she answered, and popped out the spent cartridge as quickly as it was possible to do with the massive cannon.

"You little shits!" the vampire yelled as Seras fired, himself jumping out of the way just barely in time. He had a large gun in each hand and charged after Walter.

With the ghouls all down from her previous shot, Seras left her post.

"You old fart!" the vampire yelled – then lost one of the piercings through his lower lip. "Die!"

Seras caught him up as he raised the guns in his hands, disarming him just the way she'd been taught at the police academy and tackling him to the ground. If she did it with a bit more prejudice than the academy would have gone for... well.

"You like fucking corpses do you?" she hissed in his ear as she pulled his body back at an unnatural angle, legs stretched out behind him and one of her arms under his throat. "After today, you'll never pull your dick out of your trousers again," she promised dangerously. "Are you alright Walter?" she asked pleasantly, quickly changing her demeanour for the elderly gentleman.

"I'm not as spry as I was in the old days," he admitted a little unhappily while the vampire protested his own pain at the grip Seras had on him. "Anyway, where did you learn a tackle like that?"

Seras blinked up at the man. "I was a policewoman, one licensed to carry a gun, before I came here Walter," she pointed out.

"Hey, whore, you're a vampire?" the vampire Seras was holding managed to gasp out past her choke-hold. "Nobody told me they had any – _urk_!"

Seras had one arm wrapped around his throat, as already noted. The other arm was holding one of his, and had it between his back and her front. She squeezed tighter around his neck with her arm, and used the fist wrapped around his wrist to dig painfully into his kidneys. She was _no_ whore, and she wouldn't take any of that sort of lip from this guy.

"We'll be the ones asking the questions," Walter said firmly. "What is your purpose? Who's pulling the strings behind this operation?" he demanded.

"Talk," Seras ordered as she quickly adjusted her hold on him and slammed his face into the floor.

"The objective is here," the vampire growled out. "An attack against the Hellsing Organisation and the Council of the Round Table. Then, the complete destruction of Alucard. That is what we were told to accomplish."

"'We'?" Walter repeated. "Did you just say 'we'?"

The vampire smirked, then winced as Seras dug both of her fists – and his right along with – into his kidneys again. "Damn right!" he said, the smug, crazed grin creeping back onto his face despite the pain Seras was deliberately causing him. "Right about now, my bro will be finishing him off."

"Ha," Seras scoffed. "You over-estimate your brother, and under-estimate Alucard," she informed him. "If your 'bro' is still alive at all, it is only because Alucard is toying with him."

"We were born to kill you sods off!" the vampire objected. "So just die already!"

"What can you do in that state?" Walter asked rhetorically.

"Guess you are senile," the vampire said with a smirk.

Walter looked up, passed Seras and her captive, and his eyes widened in horror. "What have you done?" he asked, the words little more than breathed out.

"You haven't answered one important question yet," Seras hissed at the vampire, not letting her attention waver to whatever horror was behind her. "Who put you up to this?" she demanded.

"Good luck to ya bitch," the vampire answered as he caught fire from nothing.

Seras kept hold of his wrists as she quickly stood, so that she wouldn't be burned as well, but she stood on his back, ripping the arms off as she dug her boot-heel into his spine.

"I'll tell ya who," he spat as he burned. "Millen...nium..." he said as he crumbled to ash.

Seras turned to see at last what horror behind her had struck Walter dumb.

"This is why I need a smaller armament as well as the Harkonen," she said bluntly.

"You'll have it no later than tomorrow," Walter promised.

Seras sighed. "Shall we?" she asked, gesturing her hand out to the shuffling ghouls that had once been Hellsing men, as though she were inviting Walter to dance.

Walter nodded solemnly, drawing his wires between his teeth in readiness.

Then they danced death into the ghouls that had once been their comrades. Walter sliced them cleanly. Seras ripped them apart messily, or bashed their heads open on the walls. They did this until all the ghouls were dead.

"I'll take them outside to be burned," Seras offered as she dispassionately ripped the head from the shoulders of the last ghoul. "You let Sir Integra know that it's finished, and that the vampire admitted to being sent on the order of something called 'Millennium'."

"Ah, thank you, Miss Victoria," Walter said.

"And Walter?" Seras said as she started to pile up the bodies.

"Yes, Miss Seras?"

"Find me a clean uniform? With trousers, for preference," she requested.

"Uh... Certainly, Miss Seras."

~oOo~

"You're kidding us Captain," one of the mercenaries scoffed.

"It's true!" Integra announced to the mercenaries as she allowed Seras to slip into the room – Alucard hadn't taught her yet how to just disappear, fade out of a room, vanish from one place and reappear in another. Sometimes, her master was a bastard.

"Your enemies will be vampires and ghouls. Immortal monsters. We splash the little demons with holy water and stab a crucifix through their hearts. Their unclean souls fall to ash around the cross. This is what we do," Integra said with some passion. "For further information, please read the Bram Stoker novel," she added with somewhat false pleasantry.

"Are you kidding?" asked another of the mercenaries.

"There's no such thing as a 'vampire'," the first agreed, scoffing lightly.

"The truth about the existence of vampires is a closely guarded secret, strictly need-to-know," Integra informed them. "Prior to now, none of you needed to know, and as such, didn't. The Hellsing Organisation was formed a century ago. We work out of the public eye to keep the normal civilians ignorant of one secret, and one secret only: vampires do exist."

Seras almost applauded the speech. It was very well given.

But Integra wasn't done, and there was a reason Seras had come with her.

"If that is not enough, then look there!" Integra bid them, and pointed at Seras. "Hellsing is fortunate enough to have two vampires at its disposal for the hunting of other vampires. This is one of them."

Seras was in a fresh uniform. It was the same uniform as before, with the tiny skirt and very high socks. Walter had provided her with a pair of trousers, but only the one pair on such short notice, and as active as everything was right now, Seras was saving them for a job where they weren't likely to be torn to shreds – and actually a mission, rather than just being around a mostly-empty mansion. So she was still in the skirt as the mercenaries stared at her.

"What?" the leader of the mercenaries asked, incredulous, as he got up from his chair and walked over to her. "You're a vampire?"

Seras shrugged. "Yep," she said simply.

The mercenaries all laughed.

Seras looked over at Integra. "I told you they'd laugh," she informed her boss. "I'm not intimidating enough." She sighed. "It's the tiny skirt, I know it is."

"Walter is ordering more trousers for you," Integra said with a shrug. "Give them a demonstration."

"Yes Ma'am," Seras sighed, and returned her attention to the mercenary leader standing before her.

"If this little Mignonette is a vampire, then I'm Frankenstein's Monster," he said with a giggle and a leer as he raised his hands in imitation – and moved in on Seras, clearly aiming to grope her chest.

Damn it.

And damn him.

Seras smirked. Once upon a time, she'd had to really fight off his type. Now though, she could (and did) just flick him with a finger. It was enough to send him flying, and get the point across that she was _not_ human.

"You're really a vampire, aren't you?" the mercenary leader asked, shocked, from where he'd landed, bleeding from her little flick, among his men.

"Of course she is," Alucard answered as he slowly emerged from the wall.

"I want to learn that trick," Seras grumbled as all the mercenaries flinched back from her Master.

"What a cowardly bunch of soldiers," Alucard observed. "They look utterly useless."

"So very sorry Mistress," Walter's voice came from down the hallway, and he appeared not long after at Integra's shoulder, though he used the door. "I tried to stop him," he apologised.

"These men are charged with protecting my master," Alucard said. "I wanted to see what sort of soldiers they were."

"The greedy and lustful sort," Seras answered shortly and with disgust while Walter presented Integra with a letter that had arrived for her.

~oOo~

Disaster at the museum was averted when Seras carefully and with deliberate (if false) cheer, directed a group of elderly tourists between Alucard and Anderson as they were gearing up to fight. She'd stolen them from their rightful tour guide, but she returned them quickly enough, and was back on bodyguard duty.

It was daylight, so she really _should_ have been sleeping, as her Master had been when he heard the Italian swearing at Sir Integra even hundreds of miles away. She wanted to learn how he did _that_ too. By the time she'd changed into something... subtle that also protected her from the sun (boots, pressed trousers, a high-collared, long-sleeved shirt, and a hat which _could_ be justified by the rare bout of fine weather they were having), Sir Integra had a book in her hands while the Italian talked.

"They've finally begun to understand 'Millennium'," Seras heard a voice say from a short distance away.

She had been just about to leave the building behind and go out into the sun-drenched patio where Integra and the Italian were, but froze instead and moved towards the bar, keeping her ears pricked as she pretended that she had changed her mind about going outside in favour of a cool drink.

"'Begun to understand'?" another voice asked. "Oh, they've barely scratched the surface!"

Seras knew her back was to them now, and didn't turn. Rather, she tilted her head back in an appearance of reading the menu that was on display above the counter.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you Herr-Komandant?" the owner of the first voice asked.

Seras requested a glass of water – surely she'd be able to keep that down? Blood was largely water, after all. She sipped carefully and, yes, it went down without a problem. Water she could still drink. Good to know, especially in situations like this one.

"Oh yes, very much. I am enjoying this very much," the second voice agreed as Seras continued to inconspicuously sip her water. "Think about it, this was an important point! The next time we see them, there's sure to be lots of blood and death! It's wonderful! Perfect, truly perfect!"

Seras frowned to herself. So, the enemy was watching Sir Integra's meeting with the Italian. Knew about this meeting in advance enough _to_ watch it take place without giving themselves away to those they were observing. Were _pleased_ that Hellsing was learning about who they were. The enemy was looking forward to blood and death.

Well, they'd come to the right place if they were knocking on her Master's coffin-lid, she'd give them that.

~oOo~

Speaking of coffin-lids...

"So, because I'm new, and weak, and haven't drunk any blood yet, I'm going to guess I've got to be in my coffin if I want to cross the sea," Seras said when she was confronted with the most recent issue of orders. "Or do I get to stay here at Hellsing and be the vampire on duty if Millennium decides to try attacking Hellsing again while you're in Brazil?" she asked.

Alucard was being sent to Rio de Janero in Brazil to follow up on some of the leads that Iscariot had provided. His orders were 'search and destroy'.

"You will be accompanying me," Alucard answered firmly. "And yes, you will be travelling in your coffin. You do raise a good point though..."

Seras shook her head. "Master, I think Millennium is mostly after you," she said.

"Oh?" Alucard asked, curiosity peaked. "What makes you think so?"

Seras relayed the brief conversation she had overheard at the museum after he'd left.

"And you didn't turn and kill them on the spot because...?" Alucard asked.

Seras raised a finger, clearly intent on counting off reasons again. "That would ruin your fun," she said reasonably.

Alucard grinned. "Such a thoughtful Childe I have," he commented, amused.

Seras smiled back and raised a second finger. "Killing this commander is an honour that belongs to Sir Integra, I'm fairly sure," she continued. "And if it doesn't yet, it will before long."

Alucard inclined his head. "You are probably correct," he allowed.

Seras raised a third finger. "Last but not least, it was a public museum full of members of said public. The Hellsing Organisation doesn't do 'public', and I couldn't think of a way Sir Integra could have explained me randomly killing two people in the museum café in broad daylight," she explained.

Alucard nodded. "Very well," he decided. "You are still coming with me to Rio. Be packed, and in your coffin, in two hours."

Seras sighed. "Will I get to see any of the traditional Rio night-life while we're there?" she asked, accepting the order without any further comment.

Alucard scoffed lightly.

Seras nodded. "Didn't think so," she admitted. "Can I be let out of my coffin as soon as we land?" she requested.

Alucard raised an eyebrow. "Do you have clothing suitable for a customer of the 'Rio Hotel'?" he asked.

Seras smiled dryly at her master. "That depends on if 'appropriate' would be for me to look like your P.A," she answered.

Alucard smirked back at her. "That will do," he agreed.

~oOo~

Seras delicately folded the parasol that had been over her shoulder while she'd been outside as she joined her Master at the reception desk of the hotel. The coffins, unlike weapons, could not and would not be carried in those impossible spaces that Alucard had taught Seras to carry her weapons in. The reason? The coffins carried _them_, not the other way around, ever.

So, Pip (the man in charge of the mercenaries) was getting the men to bring the coffins in, draped in black cloths so that people wouldn't know exactly what was being brought in, and the young man at the counter was stuttering protests about size-restrictions on luggage that could be brought into the hotel.

"It's perfectly fine," Alucard assured the young man.

"N-no..."

"It's..." Alucard said, and pulled off his glasses. "Perfectly..." he raised a hand so that it hovered right in front of the receptionist's face. "Fine..."

"It's perfectly fine," the receptionist agreed dazedly. "Perfectly."

Alucard nodded and turned away from him to head for the lifts.

"How do _I_ do that?" Seras asked softly as the elevator doors closed and the lift began to carry them up to the top floor.

Alucard smirked. "Drink, of your own free will, my blood," he said plainly, and with plain delight, plain, dark, delight. "After that, it's just practice."

The elevator arrived at their floor and they exited. Pip and the men with the coffins had taken an earlier elevator, while Alucard had been hypnotising the reception clerk, so when they reached the room, the curtains were drawn, the coffins were there waiting for them, and so was a somewhat upset Pip. The man was _not_ pleased to be staying in a cheap motel while Alucard and Seras would be in the lap of luxury.

"Captain, we're being highly visible for the enemy to come at us," Seras said before her Master could say something delightfully condescending. "Once that's over with, we'll be staying in the cheap motel as well."

Alucard grinned. "I am _so_ looking forward to it all," he said. "It is looking more and more like it will be so much fun here."

Seras raised an eyebrow at her master. Fun, huh? Well, her master relished a good fight just as much as the guy who was in charge of the enemy seemed to, so, yes, she supposed for him it _would_ be fun. Maybe she'd even enjoy herself as well. She wasn't so sure of that one yet.

Alucard ordered some wine from room service, and then it was a matter of sitting down to wait while they imbibed. Seras was pleased to note that she could drink wine just as she could drink water. She'd never been a big wine-drinker when she was alive, but on those rare nights when she'd gotten a bonus in her last pay and had a night off and she'd pampered herself, she'd liked a glass of white then. This wasn't a glass of white though. Of course her Master had ordered a red.

She could taste every nuance of the wine too. It was wonderful, and without the usual effects that wine had on her – she wasn't getting giggly.

"I can't get drunk any more, can I?" she asked her master absently as she considered her glass.

"No," Alucard agreed, a hint of wistful melancholy in his tone as he swished the beverage around in the glass, "but you can still enjoy the flavours."

Seras nodded.

The lights suddenly went out and a helicopter appeared at their window, a bright light trying to penetrate the closed curtains.

"It's about to get good," Alucard noted happily.

Seras pulled out the small gun that Walter had given her after the invasion of the mansion. It was just a small thing compared to what her master carried, but it was still a good gun. Walter, bless him, had given Seras a modified version of the sort of gun she'd used when she was on the force – a Glock 22. Most of the modification was in the rounds, which were designed for killing monsters rather than people, but goodness knows they'd work on people just as well.

"Police Girl," Alucard said.

"Woman, please Master," Seras requested. "Police_woman_."

Alucard chuckled. "It doesn't have the same ring," he defended lightly.

Seras shrugged. "Then call me 'Kitten', like the rest of my old squad did," she offered. "I got used to that one, and showed each and every one of them that _this_ kitten has claws."

Alucard laughed in delight. "Very well, _Kitten_," he said. "What is that you are holding?"

"Something a bit more subtle than the Harkonen," she answered. "Walter gave me rounds for it that are armour-piercing, or explosive, or depleted uranium, or have silver castings, or have mercury tips, or any number of fun things," she explained as she checked the clip before slamming it back in professionally. "And there's fifteen rounds to a clip. It's just something for the situations where the Harkonen is over-kill. It even has a silencer."

Alucard chuckled. "Very good, Kitten," he said with approval.

Then their door was slammed open by the local police force, all kitted out in bullet-proofing and holding automatic weapons. Which they proceeded to use, firing upon Alucard, who they could see since he was facing the door. Seras had her back to the door and was in a wing-backed chair, invisible to them.

"Tell me Kitten," Alucard said lowly as he was riddled with bullets that would do him no permanent harm. "Are any of the rounds in the clip you just loaded 'armour-piercing'?"

Seras shook her head. "No Master," she answered as she raised her gun, pointing it over her shoulder, past the chair she was sitting in and at the police that had invaded their suite. "I always carry a couple of clips of _normal_ ammunition as well though, just in case there really is _no_ call for anything more," she explained as she fired, using that third eye that her master had already taught her about, to shoot each man between the eyes. "Like now."

When she'd emptied her clip, there were still five men standing. Twenty men had invaded the suite, and Seras only had fifteen bullets in her clip.

Alucard, in a bloody mess on the floor, grinned and stood. "You're very efficient, Kitten," he praised lowly, "and you've left some for me as well."

Seras shrugged as she lowered her gun to her lap once more. "You told me once that if I shot like a human, I'd miss like a human. I don't shoot like a human any more," she answered as she cleaned and re-loaded her gun.

She didn't bother looking up as her master killed four of the remaining five messily, or when he stalked up to the last, the one that had tried to run.

There was a single report of a gun, and Seras knew it wasn't the fire of either of the guns her master owned. The last policeman had killed himself rather than be ripped to shreds by Alucard.

Seras stood from her chair and walked over to where her master stood before the dead man, scowling at the body of the man who had taken his own life when confronted with the No-Life-King.

"At least he didn't soil himself before committing suicide," Seras observed.

Alucard snorted with disgust, and turned away from the body against the door. "Let's go, Kitten," he decided. "Time to make war. Oh, but first... a phone call."


	2. Chapter 2

"What did you do to them?" Integra asked when Alucard got her on the phone.

"Killed them," Alucard answered with a smile. "The Police Girl shot most of them while they were shooting me, but she left a few for me to destroy, to completely annihilate. Not one is left alive. Now Integra," Alucard said with a dark, hungry growl lining his words. "Give me an order. They're probably controlling the police, the very same ones that were ordered to attack me, the ones that I killed, and the ones that I will keep killing! They're only humans, regular humans. I can kill them, and I can keep killing them without hesitation, and will not regret a moment of it. I can, because I am a monster," he said with a smile.

Seras smiled at him and shook her head, not that he saw. Alucard was looking out the window at the army of regular humans that had been brought forth to attack him.

"But what about you, Integra?" Alucard asked. "I'm the one who holds the gun, the one who aims it. The one who loads the magazine and cocks the slide. I am the one who releases the safety, but..." Alucard grinned. "You are the one who kills them," he said to his master. "So, what will you do? Give me an order, Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing."

There was silence from the other end of the line for a while, and then Integra's voice, loud and clear, yelled back at her servant.

"Don't mess with me! I already gave my order and it hasn't changed! Search and Destroy! You are to crush anything that gets in our way! Do not run, do not hide! Attack head on! Barrel through them and obliterate any obstacles!"

Alucard laughed with cooing delight. "Roger," he agreed with a thrilled grin. "Great, that's the final word," he said, and turned to Seras to make sure that she knew as well.

Seras nodded. She'd heard.

"Truly wonderful," Alucard said, and nodded back to Seras. "The one who gets hit will stand back up, and taller than before. Integra, we'll be leaving now. Be a dear and watch us on television," he requested, and hung up.

"Hopefully she'll record it," Seras said as she started to pack up the small secure satellite phone they'd brought with them.

Alucard chuckled, the sound coming from deep within his chest. Soon, everything was packed away that needed to be, and they both had their weapons ready for use. Any human that fired upon them would forfeit their lives.

Alucard opened the doors of the suite, well aware that there were more police with guns lined up on either side of the hall beyond.

Seras stepped out first. Steel-toed boots on her feet and sharply-pressed black trousers under her Hellsing uniform shirt, and she had her Glock in one gloved hand. She smiled at the assembled men, remembering a time when, back home, she'd been training to join the tactical unit in her off-time. Then she stepped aside and bent at the waist, just the way Walter did for Sir Integra, but Seras bowed a little deeper as her master stepped out of the suite and into the hall, and with a smile she straightened again and closed the doors, hiding herself back within the safety of the suite.

Her own ability to survive standard gunfire wasn't going to be tested until Seras drank some of her master's blood. He wanted that to happen as soon as possible, but respected that Seras wanted to wait on that until she felt within herself that she was ready to take that step as a vampire.

She listened in silence to the gunfire, and moved to the window to peek out through the drawn curtains at what awaited them beyond.

The gunfire stopped.

"Kitten!" Alucard called.

"Aye!" she answered, and collected up the weapons and extra ammunition. The hall was full of bloodied bodies, and Alucard was exiting the elevator, more bodies piled up within.

"I'm going down to declare war," Alucard informed her plainly as he accepted four new clips of ammunition from her. "You go to the roof and wait for me there. I'll draw out the Millennium pawn that has set the local police on us, if it really is Millennium."

Seras nodded. "Yes sir, my Master," she answered, and adjusted the way the Harkonen sat across her back.

~oOo~

"The bleeding won't stop," Alucard said when he pulled himself up onto the roof.

"Master!" Seras gasped, shocked by his state but still steadfast that she would not give away her position until she started shooting. She didn't move.

"How fascinating. How fun! It _is_ them! Oh, how wonderfully fascinating," Alucard said as he pulled himself up and turned. His opponent, as he had hoped, had followed him to the roof.

"Are you ready, Alucard?" the new vampire asked. "To go back to your true home, back to Hell?"

Alucard laughed.

"What's so funny?" the vampire asked.

"I'm so very happy," Alucard answered with a grin. "To think that fearsome fools like you still exist! Millennium? The Last Battalion? I see, so that Kampf group of unhumans, run by that insane major... even now, the world is still brimming with madness," he said with dark delight, and his hair spontaneously grew out in sharp shadows. The shadows split off and flew away as bats, and Alucard was a fearsome sight to behold, silhouetted in black and red against the black sky and the red-tinted moon.

"Come! Sing, dance! Alhambra!" Alucard ordered gleefully. "And squeal like a pig," he added lowly, grinning darkly as his coat and hair flew around his form in a wind that touched no one but the No-Life-King.

"Squeal like a pig? Me?" the vampire asked. "Not going to happen. You still don't grasp the situation Alucard, and aren't doing anything but talking bullshit!" he said, and threw... a playing card that carved a furrow in the roof and exploded.

Seras glimpsed her master standing tall through the smoke, just for a moment. His outline was clear, his white gloves highly visible, but the rest of his form was shrouded in glowing, fiery shadows.

"Dodged again?" the vampire asked, and raised more playing cards.

Seras shot them out of his hand, drawing his attention away from her master for the moment. She switched her Glock for her rifle, and fired at him with exploding rounds until she'd used up all the ammunition that had been loaded in that magazine.

"Don't underestimate me!" the vampire yelled at her.

Seras had been about to reach for her Glock once again, but with a demand like that, well. Seras pulled out her Harkonen and loaded another explosive round.

The vampire sliced it in half with one of his cards, and the two halves exploded when they hit the roof behind and on either side of him, a couple of feet out, rather than in his chest where she'd intended the round to land.

A hand touched her shoulder, and Seras looked up at her master. Alucard was dressed differently now than he had been before, but Seras didn't let that throw her. He'd been in a refined black suit when they arrived in the suite, had re-formed after being shot in his usual grey suit, red coat, and red cravat, and now after hauling himself out of a pool of his own blood on the roof, he was dressed in a black leather body suit with straps of the same material all over, as though restraining him.

He smiled down at her with something that looked like approval, and then headed for the slowly dispersing smoke around their adversary.

In the smoke caused by the explosion of the round she'd spent from the Harkonen, Seras spotted silhouettes that looked like her master appearing and disappearing around the vampire, but he waited just beyond the smoke until the vampire finally spotted _him_.

Naturally, the vampire attempted to attack, but as he brought around his hand full of cards, Alucard took crushing hold of his wrist, and slammed his heel into one of the vampire's knees, breaking it and bending the limb at _very_ much the wrong angle. Very much the wrong angle.

"Now squeal like a pig," Alucard ordered with a manic grin.

He brought back his arm, clearly intending to strike. Some of the leather straps around that arm popped free, unable to restrain the incredible muscles that were held within.

The vampire made one last try, had one card left, but Alucard simply drove his hand, held perfectly flat and straight, just as he had held it when piercing the heart of the vampire that had attempted, once, to use her as a bargaining chip – the last survivor of the town of Cheddar.

The card was split in two, and so was the rest of the vampire's arm. Alucard caught the vampire by the face and held him aloft, the conquered foe, helpless in his grasp.

"Checkmate, Tubalcain," Alucard said happily. "Now," he continued as he tightly cupped the vampire's head in his hands, the motion looking almost tender except for the way Alucards fingers dug so harshly in, and brought the face of his defeated foe close to his own face. "Fulfil your arrangement with me. Allow me to complete my mission," he bid, his eyes glowing red in his face that had fallen into lines of near-boredom once again. "I'll have you tell me everything," he whispered.

Then he was grinning terribly again.

"With your blood," he finished, still whispering, breathing delight. With gleeful violence, Alucard opened his fanged jaws wide and clamped his teeth down on the vampire's neck.

Just like the bastard that had invaded the Hellsing mansion with ghouls, that had turned the soldiers of Hellsing _into_ ghouls, this vampire also burst into blue flames. Alucard didn't pull away as Seras had done though, he simply kept drinking the blood of his victim until there was not enough of him left to drink from. Alucard finally discarded the still-burning remains and his red coat formed around his body once more as he laughed and clapped in delight.

"Master?" Seras asked curiously as she ran up to him, her weapons strapped to her back for now, just in case.

The noise of a helicopter interrupted them before Alucard could answer her, not that it looked like he'd been about to.

"Alucard! Seras!" Pip called from the helicopter, a gun held absently to the head of the pilot. "We gotta get going!"

"Kill your enemies, kill your friends... your country, your people, even yourself..." Alucard mused as he stared up at the night sky. "But no matter how many you slaughter, it's never enough. We're both nothing but warmongers, aren't we?" he asked. "Major..."

"Hurry up! What are you doing?" Pip demanded from the chopper. "Please hurry up!"

"Master," Seras called, and lay a gentle hand on his arm. "You are more than a warmonger," she said softly. "If you were nothing but a warmonger, you wouldn't have claimed me the way you did."

"Kitten," Alucard acknowledged, and looked down to her almost tenderly. "You do have claws."

"The captain wants us to move," she said. "We need to get the coffins from the suite."

Alucard nodded.

~oOo~

Pip had gone to the shops, goodness knows what for, while Seras had elected to take a nap in her coffin while her master called Sir Integra. Except that she didn't sleep that well straight away, and was able to hear essentially their entire conversation through the panelling.

They had orders to return post-haste, and her master enjoyed riling up Sir Integra perhaps a little too much.

Seras pushed up her coffin-lid just enough to peek out at her laughing master. "If we go by boat, it will take a week," she said flatly. "And I don't see how we're going to be able to get on a plane with two coffins. We didn't keep the Hellsing private jet in Rio airport after we landed, so it would be a public plane."

"Regardless, Sir Integra has given orders," Alucard told her. "So, Kitten, are you ready to drink my blood yet?"

Seras bit her lip thoughtfully. "I think... I think I should take the blood of someone else first," she answered. "Perhaps..." she hesitated.

"Perhaps?" Alucard prompted.

"I'm not sure I really want the filthy blood of our enemy, but perhaps I could eat the next one we are told to kill?" Seras suggested. "I think if I can handle that first, I should be able to withstand the potency of your blood Master. A chance to drain a human completely would probably be better, but... I don't think Sir Integra would allow that."

Alucard smiled with dark pleasure. "That would depend on a few things," he told his fledgeling. "Such as who the human was, and if my master ever found out about it." Alucard's smile stretched into a mad grin. "And who would know if you consumed someone all the way out here?" he pointed out.

Seras smiled a little in answer, then climbed out of her coffin when Pip opened the door, returned from his errand.

Alucard relayed the latest orders from England.

Pip frowned and slurped at the drink he'd bought for himself while he was out. "Not possible," he said when he had at last finished his drink. "Completely out of the question, even. You need to take this thing with you as well, don't you?" he asked with a pointed glance at the coffins.

"This is my last fief," Alucard said as he moved to sit on top of his coffin.

Then the door of the room was kicked open, violently and with inarticulate yelling, by a familiar foe.

A familiar foe that had completely terrified Seras in their previous encounter, but she wasn't going to be scared this time! She'd just been talking with her master not long ago about draining the next one of their enemies to cross their path. What luck for her it was the Judas Priest, rather than one of the filthy Nazi nut-cases.

Though, her master might be unhappy with her for taking away his opponent...

Well, while the two imposing men pulled back their fists and bared their teeth, threw blows at each other, Seras circled around behind Anderson.

When her master drew his guns, Seras took action. God, but those standard police tackles were useful. Anderson drove his bayonets into her even with her crushing hold, but she forced herself to ignore the pain. She had an objective, and not even his starched collar and the awkward angle would get in her way!

"No!" Anderson choked out as he was drained.

Alucard laughed. "Be honoured, Judas Priest!" he declared. "My oldest, most tenderly held foe. My beloved Nemesis. You are defeated by my Childe, and you are Seras Victoria's first meal. Before you, she has had not one drop of blood. Seras, drink deeply. Don't waste a drop. Alexander Anderson _is_ your Master, your Master as he once was, a long, long time ago."

Seras bit down a little harder on Anderson's jugular and swallowed down more of that red fluid, so vital to life. Vital to Anderson's life, as it flowed through his veins. Vital to Seras' life, as it sustained her even past death.

Pip yelped in an unmanly fashion and fell back as he back-pedalled, getting away from the spectacle that was Seras feeding, no, gorging herself on the screaming catholic, even while his bayonets were stuck right through her body and the blood from her wounds was slowly staining her uniform a dark red.

Anderson started to seize after some fifteen minutes of this draining, and Seras reached into his coat. She withdrew the thing that she suddenly knew he had tucked away in there. Knew from his memories, rather than her own. Knew that it would be useful to them.

Satisfied that she had completely drained Anderson, Seras stood up at last and with one hand she withdrew the blessed bayonets from her own body, and stuck them all into Anderson's heart, save the last, which she used to chop off his head before it too was rammed through his heart. He had been still twitching beneath her after all, and for the sin of being a vampire would probably have killed himself anyway. Regenerating, virgin, Judas Priest. Now he was just a pile of dust, banished by his own blessed bayonets.

Still, he'd been quite tasty.

"There's a jet," Seras announced, and with her other hand lifted the paper she had taken from Father Anderson. "Belonging to the Vatican. It's about thirteen kilometres north of here. These papers will get us on that plane and to England in the same time it took us to get here on the Hellsing private jet," Seras said with a smile. "The Catholics are expecting us, and are in full co-operation with the idea of us getting out of one of _their_ countries."

Alucard smiled back, actually smiled. It wasn't a mean smirk or a mad grin, but a true and gentle smile. "Well done Seras," he said, and lay a large hand on top of her head. "My Seras Victoria."

Seras smiled back.

"This little Mignionette really is a monster... just like him," Pip said under his breath in quiet terror as his single remaining eye bugged at the sight of her wounds closing up, and then the fabric of her uniform closing over the wounds as well.

~oOo~

Seras had consumed an entire human's worth of blood, but she still could not travel across great oceans without the protection her coffin provided to her. Until she took her master's blood, she would continue to have that weakness – and Alucard suggested that Seras get the blood of the Judas Priest settled properly within herself before sampling _his_ blood.

Before they entered the presence of Her Majesty the Queen of England, Seras changed into a clean (yellow) uniform. No need to give the game away _too_ soon after all, and it wasn't like Pip was about to tell anybody. Alucard had removed the memory of the incident from the mercenary captain on the flight over.

"You do not want to declare your strength to the world?" Alucard had asked Seras as they packed, when she had asked him to remove the captain's memory of her drinking Anderson's blood, to keep that she had done so a complete secret.

Seras shook her head. "We're facing an enemy that doesn't know what I'm capable of," she pointed out, her voice echoing slightly, with the resonance of having consumed a soul. "I'll make my own declaration of war in time. I'll... keep my mouth shut until then, I think."

Alucard had nodded, and that had been that.

Seras had slipped into her coffin once she'd secured it on the plane, and then they were on their way to the meeting of the Round Table that Her Majesty the Queen of England had called.

"I have returned, my master," Alucard announced as he flung open the doors.

"Well done, my servant," Integra answered. "You are in her Majesty's presence. Remove your sunglasses."

Alucard obeyed without a word, and then started walking up to the Queen with that rare quiet smile on his face.

Seras waited by the door, flanking it on one side while the captain stood on the other – he looked utterly ridiculous out of uniform, in that pink top, but he was still armed. Walter hovered by Integra's shoulder where she sat at the head of the table, and while the other knights were lined up down one side of the table and Maxwell from the Vatican's Section XIII, Iscariot, and a couple of his people hanging about him like flies on a turd.

From the expression on the man's face as he watched Alucard cross the room, as well as the way he had talked to Sir Integra the last time, Seras was more than willing to relegate him to the status of 'turd'.

A pair of her Majesty's bodyguards stepped between the great vampire and the Queen as he approached, but the No-Life-King simply threw them aside, then ascended the steps to stand before the elderly woman who sat upon the nation's throne.

"It's been a long time, Vampire," she said. "Come closer, let me look at you."

Alucard knelt down before her, bringing his face to be on level with the Queen's with that action. A sigh, almost purring, escaped his lips as those weathered hands cupped his face.

"All these years, and you haven't aged a day, Alucard," the Queen remarked. "Whereas I have grown old, and so quickly I can scarce believe. See how wrinkled I am now?"

Alucard smiled tenderly at her. "I still see the same spirited tomboy of fifty years ago, my Lady," he answered. "Time has been kind to you, however you see it. To me, you have grown even more beautiful."

The Queen chuckled softly, and smiled. Amused, flattered, maybe a little of both, and withdrew her hands from his face.

"Proceed with your report, Vampire," she instructed fondly.

Alucard bowed his head, then stood and turned to face the rest of the room and descended from before her Majesty's throne.

"Fifty-five years ago," Alucard began, "an insane Nazi major tried to make an army of vampires. Walter and I laid waste to their operation, however, it seems that they simply refuse to die. They continued on in the shadows for the last fifty-five years, researching, experimenting, but now they are ready to complete their original mission. Millennium's true identity are these people, the Third Reich's last remaining soldiers: the Last Battalion."

"I see you found out through Tubalcain's blood," a new voice said from the doors. The closed doors. "The major sure blew that one!"

Seras did a double-take. That kid hadn't been there a second ago.

One of the Catholics pulled a pair of guns, and the captain drew his revolver as well.

"Woah there, I'm just the messenger!" the... person protested. This person in uniform _did_ look like a child, but if all of the enemy had been members of the Last Battalion from fifty-five years ago, then this person was no child. "I'm not here to fight anyone," he said simply as he approached the table, careless of the firearms trained on his person.

"Walter," Integra growled.

"I really don't know how he got past security," Walter answered. "My deepest apologies."

"Your security measures are useless against me," the boy said happily as he produced a device from nowhere and set it on the table. "I'm everywhere, and nowhere."

Seras watched him silently and intently from where she stood, now blocking the door.

"To the gathered representatives of the Vatican and Great Britain, my commanding officer, the _glorious_ major, has a message for all of you. Please attend carefully," the boy said, and pulled a remote control from his pocket. He had a bit of trouble getting a picture up, but it came.

So did his name. "Warrant Officer Schrödinger," the major called the boy.

Seras noted the cat-like ears on top of the boy's head, recalled his statement that he was everywhere and nowhere, and recalled a brief skip-over on the philosophical discussion of Schrödinger's cat from when she'd taken philosophy as an elective in school. The cat was placed in a box, the lid closed, and as the animal could not be observed, it was impossible to know if it was alive, dead, or even still in the box at all.

The next words to penetrate Seras' thought process was an order from Sir Integra to kill 'him'. She immediately shot out at Schrödinger and wrapped her jaws around his neck, eyes glowing red as she claimed her _second_ ever soul.

Alucard grinned in mad approval as he brought his own gun to bear against the communication set that showed the major's face.

"Seras!" Integra snapped.

"Forgive me," Seras mumbled out around the throat between her teeth. "I'll take my meal outside."

"Alucard," Integra said, the frown audible in her voice as Seras dragged the twitching Schrödinger out the large doors.

"You told us to kill him," Alucard said lazily, defending the actions of his Childe. "He will be incomparably dead very shortly."

The door closed between Seras and those still assembled around the table, and she continued to consume the Schrödinger. She continued to consume him until nothing was left but a withered husk. All of the blood of this creature was consumed by the young draculina, his will totally absorbed by herself. His memories of the process of his creation, and the knowledge of his own part in the plan for her master.

"You will not be the poison to take down _this_ great king," Seras informed him as she conjured one of Anderson's bayonets and removed the corpse's head from its shoulders. She smiled with satisfaction as the remains became dust.

"What did you do?" begged the voice of Schrödinger from within her head.

"The Schrödinger no longer exists in and of itself," she answered. "You are now a part of _me_. _You_ are _dead_."

The desperate voice, the panicking conciousness, faded almost completely at that answer, but did not vanish completely. Seras held him now, and he wasn't going anywhere without her say-so.

The doors opened.

"Master?" Seras enquired.

"We have our orders, from her Majesty herself," Alucard answered, and grinned with that dark, manic glee that only looked right on his face. "We are to _destroy_ them. Your own declaration of war in return to his was quite nice by the way. _Eating_ the messenger."

Seras blushed a little at the strange praise.

"Seras," Integra said shortly. "What did you get from Schrödinger?"

"You won't like it, Sir Integra," Seras warned. "You won't like it one bit."

"This is war, Seras," Integra said sharply. "Damn well tell me anyway."

"Yes Sir," Seras answered softly. "The Schrödinger was mostly just what he was to us today: a messenger. His task is to carry that little box around, allowing the major to communicate with his underlings."

"That's not too bad," Integra said. "Not very useful, admittedly, but not too bad."

"He did have one other role though," Seras said, and looked over at her master. "The Schrödinger was to be the instrument of my master's downfall."

"That scrap of a thing?" Integra demanded with a scoff. "How?"

"To exist, the Schrödinger must observe himself," Seras answered. "Be conscious and aware of himself. If he were absorbed by my master..."

"He'd become one among a million other voices," Alucard finished. "He would cease to be self-aware, and so cease to be. Possibly, such a thing could take me with it," he allowed. "An ingenious poison, designed specifically to be _my_ downfall."

"Can the Schrödinger execute this plan despite being devoured?" Integra asked.

Seras shook her head. "No, Sir Integra," she answered, and smirked, pleased with herself.

Integra smiled. "Then that is good news," she decided. "Little was learned, but the potential danger is defeated before it got its chance."

Alucard smiled at Seras and lay a large hand on her head fondly.

Seras smiled happily back at him.

"So, Seras, you finally drank blood," Integra noted with careful blandness as they walked.

"Y-yes, Sir Integra," Seras answered with a sheepish smile, aware of the resonance of her voice from now having consumed _another_ soul.

"You've _finally_ become a proper vampire," Integra said.

"Not quite, Sir Integra," Seras demurred. "I'm still..." she glanced up at her master, "just a little kitten draculina. Though, I am getting stronger, and I don't think I'll ever be afraid of anything ever again."

Alucard laughed. "Well said, _my_ Seras Victoria," he declared. "Yes, you must still drink from me, your master, to become a true Nosferatu. Still, you are doing very well on your own so far."

"Thank you, Master."

~oOo~

Alucard gave Seras a significant look when they arrived back at the Hellsing mansion, and then vanished.

Seras followed after him, down to his room in the basement, where there was only one chair in the middle of the great empty room, a small table, and two wine glasses, waiting to be drunk from.

Alucard was already casually bleeding into one of them, his potent crimson stain flowing from his wrist, which he had sliced open with his own teeth, when Seras politely knocked on his door and pushed it open.

"Seras," Alucard said, but did not turn. "My Seras," he said.

"My Master," she answered and entered the room, closing the door behind me. "Why did you turn me into a vampire?" she asked. "I'm grateful, but... if you were just the monster you told everybody you were, then you wouldn't have."

"You chose and decided on your own path," Alucard answered, his back still to her. "You really are far more interesting than you seem from the outside."

"And my outside has fascinated a lot of men," Seras chipped in dryly.

Alucard chuckled darkly. "Yes," he agreed. "Yet you were still a virgin in that village of death where your comrades and superiors were turned into ghouls, where another vampire would have raped and killed you as well. A hell like the bottom of a witch's pot, and what did you do in that situation? You survived. Giving up kills a man," Alucard said, and finally turned to her.

He closed the wound on his wrist, and picked up the glass he had just been bleeding into.

"When a man refuses to give up, he becomes worthy to rise above humanity," Alucard said. "You refused to give up," he said with an approving smile as he held out the glass to Seras. "It wasn't that you wanted to be a vampire, if you had wanted to become a vampire, I would have refused you. It was that you refused to die. _That_ is why I claimed you Seras."

He held out the glass to her.

Seras knelt at his feet to accept the cup as though it were the communion grail at church.

"My Seras," he said tenderly, and pressed the glass to her plump lower lip.

"Master," Seras breathed. She raised her hands around the glass, raising it up as she tilted her head back. She drank. Not one drop of her master's blood was left in that glass before she lowered it once more. "My Master," she purred possessively, and her voice echoed even deeper than it had before as a new shadow lit in her red eyes.

"No," Alucard said softly, a little sadly. "No Seras Victoria. You are Nosferatu, and servant to no one."

Seras shook her head. "I will _always_ be your servant. You will _always_ be my Master. _My_ Master," she repeated with fervent reverence as she set the glass back on the table and took Alucards hands in her own.

"Seras," Alucard whispered as he looked down at her.

"Master, I know a secret," Seras confided. "Every angel in heaven, and every devil in hell, is jealous of _us_."

Alucard scoffed softly, and smiled wryly. "Oh?" he asked, willing to humour her. "Why is that?"

"Because we are like them. We are monsters who can only act in accordance with the will of others, but unlike them, _we_ also know what it is to be human," Seras answered, and reached up to her Master's face.

He obligingly knelt down so that she could cup one cheek with her gloved hand.

"No one on this earth values _humanity_ more than you do, Master," Seras said. "You kill them when they are dogs instead of men, you kill them when they are _monsters_ instead of men, and are so resolved not to die by anyone who is not, through and through, _human_."

Alucard closed his eyes and sighed, leaning into Seras' touch. "Seras," he said softly. "My Seras. I pray to God that you will never leave me, but would He hear the prayer of a monster?"

"Even Lucifer is heard by God, and his petitions answered as they deserve," Seras answered gently. "I will not leave you."

~oOo~

"The HMS 'Eagle' has been at a standstill three-hundred kilometres off Aulington for eighteen hours. The Nazi standard has been painted, large and in red, on the deck," Integra informed her two vampires over the phone. She was at a communications headquarters elsewhere, away from the estate. "It cannot be ignored, but we have no craft that will be able to reach the ship. It is too well-armed, and there is an issue of 'magic bullets' as well."

"There is _one_ craft," Walter corrected, also over the phone. He was at his mistress' side, as he always was, acting as bodyguard as well as butler. "Just one in existence, that would be able to get Alucard onto the ship despite all the munitions."

"We don't need it," Seras answered, cutting the butler off with a shake of her head that neither of the humans could see. "I can get there."

"The ocean is the bottom of Hell's pot for a vampire," Integra pointed out. "They can't escape, but you wouldn't be able to either, once you got there."

"You're forgetting, my master," Alucard said with wicked pleasure and a manic grin on his face, the expression well conveyed by the tone of his voice.

"The Schrödinger's blood?" Integra guessed.

Seras nodded, which they didn't see. "Yes," she said. "I've had some time to practice, and I'm confident that I've mastered the Schrödinger's abilities," she continued. "I can get on, and off, the 'Eagle' without any difficulties."

"Very well. Deal with the matter, and return to the mansion post-haste," Integra instructed. "Your orders, Seras Victoria, are Search and Destroy. Do not leave so much as one of the enemy on that boat alive."

"Yes Sir, Sir Integra," Seras answered, and gave a salute that, again, went unseen.

Then, without any fanfare, she vanished from Sir Integra's office in the Hellsing Manor, and reappeared on the deck of the 'Eagle', two feet in front of the vampire who was there, dancing across the deck, twirling her musket like a baton, and singing from a German opera.

The vampire stopped and stared, shocked.

Seras smiled, brought up her Glock, loaded with modified rounds, and fired straight through the vampire's heart.

"Master would have made a spectacle of some sort out of it all," Seras said as she took the weapon from the now dying vampire. "But I am not my Master, and Sir Integra ordered that I return post-haste, so you will have a relatively _quick_ death at the end of my gun."

"I... a-am Rip van... W-Wrinkle," the dying vampire choked and wheezed out. "My bullet will..."

"There there," Seras soothed, and bent to pat her cheek. "Your bullet is mine now," she said, and drank the other vampire's blood down quickly, and then all the faster as Rip van Wrinkle caught flame.

With the musket-wielding vampire on deck gone, Seras only had to go up to the control room and dispatch ten other vampires. Weak, lesser vampires made from weak, lesser people. It was not worth drinking their filthy blood as it had been to drink the blood of the child that was everywhere, anywhere, and nowhere all at once. Not like it had been worth it to drink the blood of a hunter that had such impossible skill with her gun.

No, these vampires simply crumbled to ash as her bullets tore through them.

Seras closed her eyes vanished, reappearing elsewhere. Specifically, reappearing at Sir Integra's side.

"Seras?" Integra asked, mildly surprised.

"Mission accomplished, Sir Integra," Seras answered. "I caught them too much by surprise for them to put up any fight worth mentioning. The Navy can now safely reclaim their ship," she added with a nod to the men seated at the table with Sir Integra, and around the room at various consoles.

"Well done Seras," Integra said with approval. "Well done."

"Thank you Sir. I feel a little guilty though. The major made this war for the purpose of fighting my Master, " Seras said, a cheeky, childish smile on her face. "And I seem to be the one going out instead."

Integra chuckled. "Alucard will get his own opponents to fight, in due time," she said, and waved a dismissal.

Seras bowed and disappeared away again, to the basement of the manor this time. Having just used her guns, she now had to clean them. It wouldn't do for her weapons to jam at a vital moment because she'd been lazy with gun maintenance. There were the mercenaries to keep alive as well after all, not just the mansion to defend.

Her master was asleep when she entered his room, resting before the inevitable battle. She crept over and carefully reached into his coat, intending to do maintenance on his guns right along with her own.

"Seras," Alucard scolded, opening his eyes.

"Sorry Master," she said with a smile. "I was just going to clean your guns for you."

"Hm," he hummed, amused and pleased. "Alright," he allowed. "If you want to so much."

Seras beamed happily. "I'll do a good job, I promise."

Alucard smiled back, patted her on the head, and then reclined once more in his dark throne.

For a while, all in the Hellsing basement was silent, save the perfunctory clickings and scrapings of proper gun maintenance. Neither vampire spoke a word until...

"They intend to divide our forces," Seras said quietly when she finished cleaning her master's guns, and returned them to him. "The point of the taking of the 'Eagle' was to draw you away from Hellsing and London. Sir Integra is already in London, that would have left only me and the mercenaries to defend Hellsing, if the ploy had worked."

"But it didn't," Alucard noted as he assessed how well Seras had gone over his guns. With a smile, he returned them to their places.

"They'll attack London before they attack the mansion," Seras said. "Or, that is what the major intends. He's having a slightly harder time of things since he doesn't have the Schrödinger's to be his little spy all over the world. Not much, but a bit. He doesn't know exactly where we all are, or where his young warrant officer has disappeared to."

Alucard grinned. "You should be able to defend the mansion well enough on your own. Though the mercenaries are something of a handicap, I dare say they'll have their uses as well."

Seras blinked. "You're going to go to Sir Integra, aren't you?" she asked softly.

Alucard nodded. "She has Walter, but he isn't as spry as he used to be, besides which..." he smiled. "Besides which, that is where the _war_ will be."

Seras smiled and shook her head fondly at her master.


	3. Chapter 3

Alucard and Seras repaired to the roof when Integra called them, informing them that airships had been spotted approaching the London airspace. It would be where Seras would watch for anyone foolish enough to attempt invading the mansion. Where she would shoot them down from. Alucard, on the other hand, basked in the moonlight a moment, and drew in the night air.

"I smell nostalgia," he said, his face turned up to the moonlight. "Of men being impaled, of women being disembowelled, of children being burned alive and the elderly being riddled with shot. It is the smell of war, my Seras," he said. "This smell of death."

Seras nodded, and they stood together in silence a moment. "I can smell a Catholic," she replied at last, and pointed out across the Channel. "That greasy fellow who represented Iscariot and insulted Sir Integra."

"Oh?" Alucard asked, amused.

Seras nodded. "Anderson has memories of meeting Maxwell when he was a child, a nobody son of a whore, and already with ambitions of greatness," she said. "I'm prepared to wager he's as mad as the major," she added with a slight, smirking smile.

Alucard laughed. "I will count myself very fortunate this day indeed, if the Catholic also brings an army against me!" he crowed with delight.

Seras shook her head fondly, a smile on her face, and stepped up to her master and straightened his tie. "Go on Master," she said softly. "Go have fun, make war, stain all of London red and then drink every drop of blood that you spill. Find Sir Integra. I'll kill whoever comes here, and then come join you," she promised.

Alucard grinned and wrapped one steel-strong arm around Seras' waist, pulling her body flush against his own. "I look forward to it," he informed her lowly, his red eyes burning darkly as he studied her face for a moment. Then, ever so slowly, Alucard bent and, ever-so-gently, he laid his lips over hers. "My Seras Victoria, my No-Life-Queen," he said softly when he drew back.

Seras blinked and flickered in her master's arms. She did have to keep at least a little bit focused on who she was, or the Schrödinger's powers threatened to undo her, just as they had been intended to undo her master. She looked up at Alucard, her red eyes as large and innocent then as they had ever been when they were still blue. Then her gaze hardened.

"Master," she said, and her tone was warning. "If you do that again, this will be a _short_ war, because I will not have the patience for a long one."

Alucard grinned roguishly, and kissed Seras a second time, more passionately than before. Before, it had been a tender pressing of lips, a gentle caressing. This kiss was hungry, and had Seras gasping for air that she didn't really need when Alucard released his hold on her lips.

"A _very_ short war," Seras promised, her eyes dark and a blush staining her cheeks.

Alucard laughed that deep, insane, delighted laugh of his, and removed his arm from around her waist. He was still laughing when he exploded into a great swarm of bats, and their chirping sounded like his laughter as they flew to London.

~oOo~

Seras had to move between the interior of the mansion and the roof a couple of times, collecting up her artillery that, if a man had been using them, would have _definitely_ required jokes be made about whether or not he was compensating for something. She was ready when the first airship came into range of her weaponry, and didn't waste a shot.

The first shots she fired from her new Harkonen Mk 2 (semi-automatic, 30mm canon weighing in at three-hundred and forty-five kilos, with a maximum range of four kilometres) had to stop the V-1 missiles that were being fired at them in a curtain barrage from the airship. Once the airspace over Hellsing was clear again though, Seras put her next round – an explosive steel incendiary round – straight through the centre of the balloon.

Seras had two 'Vladimir' wide-area saturation, high-explosive grenade launchers on hand as well as her Harkonen Mk 2. She quite liked the name, even if they did have enough kick to them to send even her sliding back a little on the roof where she stood. She also liked what they did to the gondola and the balloon of the airship when she fired them, before quickly switching back to the Harkonen Mk 2 so that she could keep firing upon the enemy.

The four shots immediately following the 'Vladimirs' went to each of the engines, and she watched grimly as the thing went down in a mess of flames.

It wasn't over though, for all the captain's compliments to her marksmanship and the cheering of his 'Wild Geese' mercenaries.

The enemy were like cockroaches, they were so persistent and hard to kill. But really, that was alright.

Picadilly, Soho, Covent Garden... they were nothing but ash by that time already, and London was synonymous with Hell itself, a comparison not helped by the fact that Alucard was fighting there, for all that he was efficiently killing the vampires and ghouls, giving at least _some_ people a chance to run, to live a little longer. But what was Hell without the Devil?

"I don't like London," the captain said over the comms as the enemy, those that had survived the crash picked themselves up.

"But the normal people there, good people, they didn't have anything to do with this war. The war and the vampires didn't have anything to do with them either. That crazy major, Section Thirteen, the Last Battalion, Hellsing... it all meant nothing to the normal people... and now they're all dead. I can't forgive that," Pip said solemnly. "So, let's avenge London. It's practically our duty, at this point, to slaughter them all without mercy."

The enemy was either heedless or senseless, as they only waited long enough to count their numbers and munitions before they were charging the mansion on foot.

The mercenaries, concious of their inability to stand up against the vampiric enemy in a close-quarters battle, had peppered the grounds with landmines and claymores loaded with ball-bearings, perfect for bringing down large numbers of the enemy from a distance, and while the bombs blew up the enemy from below, Seras picked her shots from above, still firing her incendiary rounds from her Harkonen Mk 2.

The mercenaries opened fire not long after, and the surviving vampires took shelter in a ditch left by some of the earlier explosions. Normal humans would have retreated. Vampires with a thirst for blood simply waited for the bullets and bombs to run out, or for their leader to make a way for them.

Their leader certainly tried.

But Seras was on the roof, armed, and experienced with using her third eye. When the one leading the enemy attempted to make a way for her men by capturing the mercenaries in an illusion, Seras started to fire upon her, and Seras had excellent aim.

With the terrifying illusion dispelled, and the entire torso of the vampire in charge spread out over a five-square-metre area, Seras returned to picking off the other vampires. That filthy thing, she would bag the head of. Her master might enjoy the snack. She'd already had two Nazi creations, she had no desire to devour a third, but her master wasn't as picky an eater as she was.

Seras took a deep breath, tasting the night air rather than because she needed to fill her lungs, and ejected the last spent shell onto the roof.

The invading force was dead. Not one of them had made it to within a hundred yards of the front door. The mansion was intact, the mercenaries alive, and... the windows were all blown out.

Seras sighed as she looked from the busted glazing to the captain. "How did _that_ happen?" she asked.

"You may not have noticed, Mignionette, but the enemy _did_ return fire once they'd taken cover," the man answered her with an amused smirk.

Seras nodded in resigned acceptance. "I don't know if more will come here," she admitted, "but I think they're busy choking on London. I'll keep my comms up," Seras said with a gesture to her ear-piece, "but I'm heading to the main war. You all hold, and let me know if any more airships appear in the airspace here."

"Aye!" the men agreed, and saluted her.

Seras nodded, checked her weapons and, rather than simply vanishing as the Schrödinger's would have, as she had before, she took to the skies and flew to London. The aerial view would let her see where she needed to be.

~oOo~

"We have come for you! We are the righteous soldiers of the Angel of Death!" declared Maxwell from within his glass case as he hung beneath a helicopter, on the back of a jeep and surrounded by microphones. "Tonight, the world below shall know justice!"

Seras frowned from where she flew, above him, and then smirked as a wicked idea took her fancy. It was an idea that Integra would almost certainly approve of, and one that her master most _definitely_ would, if he were only there to hear it. She swooped in around the rotor-blades of the choppers and then below. It was a mere nothing to cut the cables that Maxwell's jeep hung from, to flip it over so that when it landed, the chances were _very_ good that the glass would hit the ground first and shatter. Maxwell would be trapped at the very least, but the only _good_ murderous psychopath with delusions of adequacy and intoxicated with his own power was a _dead_ one.

His screams were amplified by the microphones in the glass box with him until he crashed, and then those screams were abruptly cut off. Whether that was because he was dead, or because his amplification equipment had broken, Seras didn't care to check. The 'holy' army still continued on in battle formation, even without their insane commander.

Not long after, Seras found one of the people she was looking for.

"Are you alright Sir Integra?" she asked as she repulsed the Iscariot agents that had surrounded the Hellsing commander – and they were agents, not the soldiers that had come in and descended from the helicopters. "Any injuries?"

"I'm adequate," Integra answered. "How's headquarters?"

"Secure," Seras answered. "One airship attempted to attack. Their forces were repulsed completely. No losses on our side, though you will need a glazier and a landscaper from a few of the explosions."

"Very good," Integra praised.

Seras looked around at the Iscariot dogs present, and recognised two in particular. She hadn't ever met them herself, but Father Anderson had raised them, just as he'd raised Maxwell.

"Heinkel, Yumie," Seras greeted. "You're looking well for a couple of girls in a war-zone," she commented. "But then, Father Anderson trained you both, so I suppose that is to be expected."

The two flinched back, as though slapped by the greeting and the following comments.

Then Seras twitched, and a grin lit up her features as she turned to look the other way down the street. "Master," she cooed.

A figure formed out of the shadows there, a familiar figure in a great red coat.

"Seras," he returned lowly.

"I brought you a present," Seras said, and held out the bag with the head of the vampire that had led the charge against Hellsing.

Alucard grinned, opened his jaws wide, and swallowed the head down whole.

"Alucard," Integra started, her voice flat and unimpressed. "You seem to have gathered both the Vatican's army _and_ the Last Battalion to this place," she noted, and glanced from the Vatican's army in ranks at one end of the street, past the Iscariot agents in their grey cassocks, and to the Last Battalion gathered at the other end of the street.

"I come for my orders, my lord and master, Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing," Alucard answered eagerly. "Seras is perfectly capable of keeping you safe, even in the middle of the battlefield."

Seras chuckled. "Or I can take you to higher ground if you prefer," she offered with quiet simplicity and a commiserating smile.

Integra nodded slightly to the blonde vampire before turning to the No-Life-King. "Servant," she said. "Take heed. Here are your orders: with your silver gun, you will stain the white army crimson. Your iron gun shall stain the black army scarlet. I would know my foes by the stains of red you leave upon their chests, now: Search and Destroy!" she commanded. "Run them down! Do not let any of them leave the island alive!"

"My master," Alucard answered happily. "It shall be done as you command."

"Release Control Art Restriction: Zero. Announce your return, say the words and release your full power!" Integra commanded. "Now!"

"Take my master to higher ground, Seras," Alucard advised with a smile. "I want you to watch this."

Seras nodded, but gathered Yumie and Heinkel as well as Integra before she flashed up to the roof of one of the still-standing buildings nearby.

"Hey!" they both objected.

Seras hushed them absently and lay down along the edge of the roof to watch her master.

Alucard breathed out, calm and unperturbed as the armies advanced upon him from either side.

"Release Control Art Restriction Zero," he repeated. "Here standeth the Bird of Hermes, eating my own wings-!"

Both armies then opened fire upon him as they felt his power surge and grow.

"- to keep myself tame," Alucard finished, despite being barely held together by his own shadow, he was so filled with bullet holes.

Miles away in the Hellsing mansion, Alucard's coffin-lid peeled itself open, but it was not there that the effects were felt. Rather, from the shadowy mass that was Alucard, _there_ erupted the truth of what he was, how long he had lived, all that he had consumed in his vast lifetime.

Soldiers in plate armour and still riding on their horses appeared. Priests of ages past – Catholic and Muslim alike – shambled out among them. A more incredible cross-section of the warriors of history had never existed, for there were soldiers that had once served Alucard when he had been human, and more soldiers from every army that he had faced since then. Even the recently consumed vampire Seras had given him was there, more whole now than she had been presented, and more deadly than before as she wielded her scythe in tandem with Tubalcain as he sent his impossible cards flying everywhere.

"You two would make no difference down there," Seras said as she turned slightly, just enough to look over her shoulder at Yumie and Heinkel. "You would be worthy foes elsewhere, but not in this time and place. All the same, I will not keep you if you truly wish to fight."

"What is it?" Heinkel asked, eyes wide with something akin to panic.

"How can something like that even exist?" Yumie added, her question a horrified whisper.

"This is the true face of the vampire Alucard," Integra answered, "for blood is the currency of the soul, the vehicle of life. It is the medium by which life can be transferred. To drink blood is to take the essence of a soul into oneself."

"No matter what you do," Seras said with a wistful sigh, "you will never be able to kill my Master. The Nazis came up with a good plan, but," she paused to giggle, "but I'm afraid I put a halt to that already."

Seras looked back down to the streets, and sighed at the sight of her Master, calling upon his consumed souls, his soldiers of centuries past. In rank and file behind him they appeared, ready to be commanded by their king once more, and once more he _looked_ like the king he truly was. He wore elaborate plate armour, a great cape hung from his shoulders, and his hair flowed long and curled as his army charged past him, through the streets of a bloodied London in both directions. Both the white and the black armies were steadily overwhelmed by his own army of blood red.

The sun, when it rose, was blocked out from the streets of greater London by the corpses of two armies, raised high on pikes.

Yumie and Heinkel chose not to retreat to the Vatican with the few other remaining paladins of Iscariot that had not been overwhelmed by the initial release of the red tide. Rather, they regrouped and charged in, full speed. With some great searching, it was possible to see Yumie and Heinkel carving a path through Alucard's consumed souls.

They were nowhere near Alucard himself though. It was quite possible that they had no idea where the great enemy stood, but simply killed all they saw who did not wear the uniform of Iscariot.

Seras and Integra descended to the bloody street where they could greet Alucard properly, as they had not before when he came to Integra for orders. The street there was empty, save for the raised corpses above.

"My Count," Integra greeted solemnly. "You have returned."

Alucard knelt. "At your pleasure, my lady," he answered. His voice was different. The echo of all the souls was gone, since he had expelled them from his person for this most devastating of attacks, and there was a slight accent to his voice. Behind him, his cloak still billowed in a wind unfelt by any other, and orange shadows danced there.

"Master," Seras greeted softly, and knelt in front of him as he had knelt before Integra.

Alucard stood once more, a great and mighty figure in his armour.

"I couldn't tell from so far away, but I see now that you have grown a moustache," Seras commented as she looked up at him. "A beard too."

Alucard chuckled softly. "Yes, Seras," he said, and lay a large but gentle hand on her head. "My Seras," he said, and gently pulled her to her feet. "My Seras Victoria."

"My Master," Seras answered, and caressed his facial hair tenderly, not because it was facial hair, but because it was on _his_ face, and it belonged there. This was his truest face. It was the face he had died with. At that moment, there was _only_ her Master, not her master and all of his other souls as well, but just him.

Seras stretched up and lightly caressed Alucard's lips with her own. She felt him smile at the touch, lean in... and she bit down. His blood tantalised her taste-buds as her fangs cut into his lip, purer now than it had been when she drank it before. Untainted by the other millions of souls that, at that moment, continued to flood London's streets, seeking out the enemy and killing them, raising them up on pikes wherever they were found.

"I was right," she said when she pulled back.

"Oh?" Alucard asked softly, the heated look in his eyes matching her tender gaze.

Seras smiled up at him. "Your blood tastes different right now," she explained. "Less rich, but so much purer for not carrying all of those," she said with a gesture to where the red army could still be seen.

Alucard smiled again. "My Seras," he said again, fondly.

Seras smiled back. "My Master," she answered him.

Integra raised an eyebrow at the two vampires' antics, practically flirting in the middle of the battlefield, but kept her peace. They had time to flirt right now, and it seemed fitting that they should, somehow. Integra remembered her father telling her, long ago now, that he saw these great, terrible, immortal monsters, with their thirsts for battle, as pitiable children. They were pitiable children who were crying, begging, desperately seeking that one thing that eluded them – their own deaths.

Now here were two such monsters – the ancient Alucard, and the young Seras – surrounded by battle and simply standing there, staring into each others eyes as if they had finally found that one thing that all _humans_ sought: the unconditional love of another. It was, in a way, poetic.

~oOo~

The armies in the streets were gone, save for Alucard's, and the armies in the skies had shot each other down very efficiently. Only one airship remained in the sky, and only three people remained in the streets.

No. There were four.

"Walter?" Integra called out when she saw the figure silhouetted there, eyes wide. "Walter, is that you?"

"It _was_ Walter," Alucard corrected lowly, a frown on his face.

"Walter, what happened to you?" Seras asked sadly.

"What happened? I was captured, brainwashed, and turned into a vampire before being sent out on a suicide mission against my former master," Walter answered. "Is that what you want to hear?" he asked. "It is a lie. I am here on no one's orders but my own."

"Why?" Integra asked.

"No one can stop me," Walter said, declining to answer. "No one can stop my rebellion."

"Then you are as foolish and deluded as the garbage that attempted to invade Hellsing," Seras informed him, "and you are _not_ Walter C. Dolnez, because _that_ man was not a fool."

"Hello Reaper," Alucard said. "It's been said that an Englishman's hobby is growing old. They hide their minds and refuse glory. I suppose you are no longer an Englishman though. You were more beautiful with greying hair and covered in wrinkles than you are now. You were exemplary. Now... You disappoint me. So, you have become a more true Reaper."

"Yes," Walter agreed. "This world is but a blood-soaked, fleeting dream. With the rise of the sun, I am a Reaper. Fight me, Alucard!"

"We are nothing but dogs," Alucard said. "And dogs hunt for their master, not their own pleasure."

Alucard turned away from his old friend to his master.

Integra stood there still, unable to tear her eyes away from the sight of the once-man who had been her butler, her tutor, her right hand, the one who had been her most trusted man. The shock had faded from her blue eyes now though, leaving hurt and betrayal to linger there behind a mask of apathy. A mask to hide the pain she was feeling. To hide the child within who cried and wailed and begged to know _why_.

"Master, what are your orders?" Alucard asked softly. "I can kill him, I can slaughter him without the slightest hesitation or remorse, because I am a monster," he said, and except for the way he said it, it sounded like the beginning of a familiar speech, one he had given before. "I am the one who holds the gun, the one who aims it. The one who loads the magazine and cocks the slide. I am the one who chambers the round and releases the safety, but..."

The last time Alucard had said these things to Integra, it had been over the phone before he went to slaughter the police of Rio, who were being manipulated by Millennium. The last time he had spoken these words, he had been eager and grinning and hungering for battle.

This time, the words were said quietly, gently. Walter had been a friend, a comrade, and a part of their family, unorthodox as it was.

"It is my will," Integra finished, her own words soft. "It is my will that kills them. It is my will... that this day kills Walter," she said sadly. "The will of Hellsing that orders all who oppose us be removed from this earth. My unchanging order, Alucard," she said, and her voice became hard as the blade she had used to defend herself when she was alone in the ghoul-infested London streets. "Search and Destroy! No matter what, or who, they are! Enemies of Hellsing will be ground to dust!"

Alucard whipped around, the manic grin he always wore into battle taking up residence on his face once more, and as his armour, and his beard, vanished away, he was ready to face his new enemy. His appearance just as it had been when he claimed Tubalcain's life.

"Well spoken, Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing!" a voice proclaimed over a speaker system, and the last airship in the sky descended to them. It was the major. "I'll never call you an amateur again! You've finally become a worthy foe! My wonderful, fearsome, fated rival!"

Integra sneered up at the airship as it approached, as it landed in the street with a crash. It would not take off again, even if the major somehow _won_ this day, that airship would not fly again.

"The cards of destiny have been dealt," the major said as the airship finally came to a halt. A great door opened up in the bay of the gondola, ramps extended down. "Now, I call! The Third Reich cordially welcomes you!"

"Go," Alucard bid his master. "Go and kill. Go and finish this."

"Oh, I will," Integra promised, and turned her back on Walter, on Alucard, and the place where they would fight. She had her destination – it was the landed monstrosity that had come down behind them.

"Seras, you as well. Our lord needs a retinue. End that man's fifty-five-year-long dream," Alucard bid her softly. "While I end _this_ man's long night," he added, turning back to Walter.

"Yes Master," Seras agreed, and began to turn, to follow Sir Integra. She stopped though, and looked at Walter. "This may not be the best time to say this," she allowed, "but there will be no other time, so... Walter? You were always very kind and helpful, so I thank you for that, and despite this, I will remember you fondly."

Walter stiffened where he stood, and his eyes went wide for a moment. He steeled himself, sighed, and smiled at her. "You too," he answered fondly.

Seras nodded, gave one last smile, quickly kissed her master on the cheek, and turned to hurry after Sir Integra.

"Farewell, Walter. Farewell, and die," Integra bid him, but did not turn from her path to look back at him. "Seras, let's end this."

"Yes Sir, Sir Integra," Seras agreed.

~oOo~

As they made their way through the airship, Integra and Seras killed every vampire that tried to block their way – and every vampire was smiling as they died. Some were even laughing.

"Seras," Integra said as they continued on. "Do you suppose everyone smiles when they die?" she asked. "Or is it just that these men smile because they all came here to die?"

"Now, don't say that Fraulein," the major said over the PA system. "We didn't come here _to die_, we just don't care if we die or not. To achieve this, we must work hard, and because of _this_ war, every human in the world will know of us. We do not want to simply die in ignominy. We have to die for something _more_!" he explained. "For that, we came here. But what more is there? There must be something, there must still be a place to fight your enemy! Some place in the world, there has to be a battlefield we can call our own. For us to die, there has to be something more, otherwise, we must continue eternally, for the sake of death. You, Hellsing, make our deaths worth it because you yourselves are worth killing!"

"Oh _do_ shut up!" Seras snapped. She glared at the nearest PA speaker a moment before she brought up her Glock and shot it out.

"Thank you, Seras," Integra said calmly. "But it seems we have more company."

This was true. A figure that was as tall as Anderson had been, as tall as Alucard, stood before them at the end of the hall.

"Please go on ahead, Sir Integra," Seras said as she narrowed her eyes at the imposing figure in his shrouding coat. "And shut that insufferable major up permanently."

Integra smiled. "Don't die, Seras," she instructed. "I won't forgive you if you do. I don't think Alucard would either."

Seras chuckled. "If I need to be saved, I'll not forgive _myself_ in a hurry," she answered.

The large man at the end of the hall raised a hand, but not against them. He simply pointed to a small sign that indicated the direction of the 'Hauptquartier', no doubt where the major waited for them.

"Hn," Integra hummed, amused, as she set a fresh cigar between her teeth. "Such an honest lapdog," she noted, and lit the cigar. "Don't take too long," she instructed Seras, and without fear walked up to the enemy that stood there. Without a word to him, she turned and headed down the hall he had indicated.

"You're different to the others," Seras noted, even as she pulled out her guns. "You're not actually a _vampire_, are you? You're something else."

The man brought up his guns and opened fire, not giving her an answer.

Accepting his silence, Seras returned fire and charged at him as she shot.

An explosion created a barrier of dust, smoke and debris for a moment, and then the man's coat came flying at Seras, covering her head so that she could not see out at her opponent. If she had been human, that would have worked. If she had been human, the shots fired into her by her opponent would have done true damage. She was not human any more. She ripped carelessly through the heavy coat and continued to fire upon her enemy.

Her bullets tore into his bare chest, the explosion ripped up one side of his face, and more than simply healing, white fur appeared where the damage had been. The man transformed in the small hallway into a large beast with many teeth.

"A werewolf," Seras said, eyes wide as she stared up at it, then she had to dodge as it sped at her, teeth bared.

It slammed her through a wall, through the floor, and they landed in the bowels of the airship. The werewolf with his human skin on once more as he touched down, and simply stood there a moment, as though he were assessing her.

Seras had transformed herself without even thinking. She was no hound of the Baskervilles like her master, and no wolf like her foe, but rather a large, sleek, black feline. A black panther, and she'd twisted in the air as she fell, like any cat would. She landed on her feet without suffering further injury, and then stood, her own usual self once more.

The werewolf broke open the crates in the room they had fallen into as he charged at her again, and gold, banknotes, watches, even cuff-links and gold fillings were scattered.

Seras aimed a kick at his head. He bent backwards beneath it. She used her own shadows to pierce his body, but he survived, darting off them and coming to land, balanced perfectly on a raised point of her darkness.

Seras checked her ammunition while he simply stood there and watched her. "Damn," she said absently, "I seem to be out of silver bullets."

The werewolf leapt down and spun a kick at something Seras didn't quite see as he fell, the treasures stolen by the SS falling around him still. She caught it without trouble, and looked down at what it was. A silver tooth.

"Thank you," Seras said with a polite smile. "I will kill you with this then," she promised, and held the tooth delicately between her first and second finger.

He charged.

Seras waited for him. She was out of silver bullets, but she still had explosive rounds. When he was close enough that he leapt at her to launch a kick, she shot off both his arms. When his foot came, she let it pass her face and then sank her teeth into his thigh, holding him in place. Then she brought back her hand, the silver tooth glinting in the vague light of her fiery shadows, and plunged it into the wolf-man's heart.

The tag that hung from his neck fell, and snapped in two when it hit the ground.

Seras pulled her hand from his chest, released her hold on his thigh, and licked his blood off her lips.

He fell to the floor, bleeding out and with a gaping, fist-sized hole in his chest. He smiled, just a little at first, then widely, and finally caught fire, just as other defeated monsters of Millennium had done before him.

It was time for her to catch up with Sir Integra.

~oOo~

"Seras," Integra greeted when the draculina arrived at the main deck. "There's a glass between myself and the major that prevents me from killing him. Be a dear and take it down?" she requested. "Then go and find this 'Doc' that the major mentioned, I do believe he might be important."

"Yes Sir, Sir Integra," Seras answered, and drove her shadows down into the bowled of the airship, to the place she had just left, and brought back up an eighty-eight millimetre weapon. She braced and fired.

The glass, the screens, shattered.

"It seems that I have lost again," the major said as the glass fell. "My excellent plot to destroy Alucard has failed. I don't know how, but then, I don't know where Schrödinger disappeared to either. It is most vexing."

"Sir Integra," Seras said, and bowed slightly as Walter had once done. "The major is yours to kill."

Integra nodded. "Go," she dismissed. "I will dispose of this..." she looked over at what remained of the major.

Gears, cogs, wires, all could be seen, exposed down his left side where the explosion from the eighty-eight millimetre round had caught him. He was a machine.

"This monster."

"I'm not a monster," the major said with a sneer. "I am human. There is one thing that makes us human – one's own will. Don't associate me with a monster like Alucard who must take in the wills of others as he takes their blood, so that he may keep on living. Do not lump me in together with a feeble creature like Alucard. I will always be human. Humans are beings of the soul, of mind, of will. Even if Alucard smiles in the guise of a young girl or kneels, full of sentiment, in the form of a veteran warrior, _he_ is still a monster. Therefore do I hate him. From the bottom of my heart I don't approve of Alucard the vampire!"

"My Master," Seras said, "is more a human than you are."

"He is a human-like monster, and I am a monster-like human," the major said with a sneer. "But I am me."

"Seras, go," Integra repeated, and whipped off her coat, revealing that she still had another weapon strapped to her person, even though she had already broken her sword on the glass that had required the eighty-eight millimetre to break.

Seras nodded and vanished, seeking out the 'Doc' that Integra had bid her find. The Schrödinger knew where his lab was.

"It's not over!" the doctor was babbling to himself when Seras appeared in his lab. He was bundling books off his tables and into a bag. "It can't be over!"

"Oh, but it is," she assured him. "The war is over, the vampires are all dead but my Master and myself."

"I haven't reached my goal yet!" the doctor objected. "What's wrong? What's missing?"

"Let it be," Seras advised. "It's not worth it, and you are the very last of the Nazis."

"It _is_ worth it!" the doctor objected. "It would be a miracle brought about by science! My research will yet change the face of the world!"

"It has already," Seras said with an uncaring shrug.

"Someday, I will surpass Alucard!" he insisted. "Someday, we'll catch that!" he said with a gesture to a great shrouded thing on the wall behind him.

Seras smiled, brought up her gun, and fired. The bullet was perfectly centred in his brow when it pierced, and made a nice big splatter out the back of his head when it exited. "No, you won't," she informed him as he twitched, dying. "No one will ever surpass my Master."

Seras looked up at the room and shook her head at his pathetic research. To fabricate a vampire... no. It wasn't possible. Not really. Dispassionately, Seras lit the room on fire, and stayed only long enough to be sure that the object the doctor had been chasing fell into the flames as well.

It wouldn't do for Sir Integra to be trapped in a burning airship, after all. It was time they returned to her master.

~oOo~

"So, London is nothing but a great, ugly headstone now," Alucard said when his master and servant returned to him. "The war is over."

"It is," Integra agreed. "Walter?"

Alucard stepped aside to reveal the head of the butler, young again, separated by four feet from his body.

Seras knelt down by the head and raised it. Raised it high above her own, and let Walter's blood, tainted though it was now, fall into her open mouth.

Alucard smiled sadly at her. "You are a vampire now, Seras," he said. "We kill our enemies, we kill our friends, our country, our people... our own selves..."

Seras lowered Walter's head and looked up at her master. "And we preserve those who were worthy foes within our minds. We never forget them," she finished. "My Master."

He nodded.

"Home," Integra requested. "Alucard, Seras, let's go home."

Alucard recalled all of his lives, all his souls, all the blood that had soaked into the streets of London, and Seras stood before Sir Integra so that the tide would pass around them as they walked. There was no danger now. Only the long walk remaining.

"The sun is up," Integra noted to her two vampires.

"Yes, Sir Integra," Seras agreed, and wrapped an arm around the woman's shoulders. With the powers she understood now from the Schrödinger, she transported herself and the Lady Hellsing back to the Hellsing mansion with no more than a thought.

"It's not going to be difficult for you, is it? With the Schrödinger in you, causing you troubles?" asked Integra. "We discussed the difficulties he would have caused Alucard, briefly."

Seras shook her head. "It is possible to kill the souls within," she said. "I have done this. I took in the Schrödinger, I understood his life, his memories, his power, and then I killed him. I know who I am, and though I have other souls within me, as long as I do not forget who _I_ am, then I will never disappear as the major intended for my Master."

"Besides," Alucard added as he joined them, "Seras does not indiscriminately gorge as I do, but rather chooses with care who she will consume."

Seras nodded in agreement.

"Alright," Integra allowed. "I need to report the situation to Sir Irons. You are both dismissed for the day. Hopefully there will be no more vampires to kill when night comes again."

The two vampires bowed to Sir Hellsing, and faded from the room. Their destination: the basement. It was daylight out, and time for all good vampires to be asleep. Time for all the naughty ones to be asleep as well, for that matter.

~oOo~

Seras stretched leisurely as she woke the following evening. She arched her back and yawned with lazy delight. Then the lid of her coffin was lifted, and she smiled at the face that looked down at her.

"Good evening, Master," she greeted with a lazy smile.

"Good evening, Seras Victoria," he answered with a smile of his own. "The war was short," he noted.

"Only one night long," she agreed. "I think that will go down in the history books as a 'mess', 'incident' or 'catastrophe' rather than a 'war'," she said, and reached up. She caressed his face tenderly, then slid her fingers deeply into his thick black hair. With her hand on the back of his head, Seras pulled herself up into a sitting position, stopping with her lips mere breath below those of her master.

With a hiss of sucked-in air, Alucard pulled her to him forcefully, closing that minor distance between them and latching onto her mouth. It was to him a delicacy to be indulged in, a fortification to be plundered, and he did so with relish.

"My beloved, my No-Life-Queen, my Seras Victoria," Alucard murmured lowly when they separated. "Untouched and all mine."

"Hm," Seras hummed shortly and smiled up at her master as a thought struck her. She leant up to his ear and whispered, lips lightly brushing the shell of his ear, "Catch me first, Master," she bid, and transformed into the first of her familiars that she had discovered – the great black panther.

She twisted beneath him and, taking advantage of the bare second he was still with surprise, sprung out from beneath him, landing on her paws a good three yards from where he still hovered over her coffin.

Seras looked over her shoulder at him and smirked as only a cat could, then stretched in that typical feline way, showing off all the rippling muscles beneath her dark fur, enticing her master to transform himself and hunt her like the apex predator he was.

But he remained frozen as he stared at her.

Seras smiled and stepped up to him. She arched her back against his thigh and twined around his legs. She swiped the tip of her tail beneath his nose, which finally snapped him out of his surprise.

He laughed, deeply, and grinned so that he showed off his teeth.

"Oh my Seras," he said, and knelt down to stroke her head. "I cannot without releasing the Control Art Restrictions, and that is not something I may do frivolously."

Seras sighed, but understood. She picked herself up and padded over to the bed – her bed, which Walter had removed when he brought her coffin, and which he had returned upon her request – before she reverted.

"You must still catch me," she teased, "but I have no plans to run. Untouched, and all yours, Master," Seras reminded him with a hooded gaze as she settled against the pillows. "_My_ Master."

Alucard grinned at her hungrily, and stalked up to where she sat on the coverlet. "Yes," he hissed as he knelt there, one leg on either side of hers.

"My Master," Seras repeated as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "_All mine_."

"My Seras," Alucard answered, and happily leant into the embrace, running his nose along her clavicle. "I have caught you. Next, I will conquer you. You are mine and no one else's."

~oOo~

_Oh~ the Black Cat yawns, opens up her jaws,_

_Stretches her legs and shows her claws._

_Then she gets up on her delicate toes,_

_Arches her back as far as it goes._

_She lets herself down with partic'lar care,  
And pads away with her tail in the air._

~The End~


End file.
